‘Yes.’
Kim heard the telltale sound of wheels on the concrete floor.
She placed a reassuring hand on Gavin’s arm as the double doors opened.
She both felt and heard his sharp intake of breath as the sheet-covered trolley came into the room with Keats at its helm. It was indeed an eerie sight, one that she had become inured to over the years.
Keats waited just a moment before looking to her for a signal.
She nodded.
Keats moved to the side and pulled the sheet back to the neck.
There was no way to hide the fact that the left half of her face was missing, but Keats had managed to remove most of the blood and had placed a gauze so that it ran close to the edge of her nose, leaving the right side of the face looking reasonably normal.
There were times that this man aggravated the life out of her. And then there were times that he didn’t.
A soft cry escaped Gavin’s lips.
She gripped his arm, and his other hand covered hers for support.
She watched as his eyes filled with emotion and reddened.
‘Wh-What exactly do I have to do?’
‘Just confirm to us that this is Helen Daynes, your mother-in-law.’
‘It is,’ he said, fighting back the tears.
He looked to her, his eyes filled with grief. ‘May I?’
She looked to Keats who nodded.
Gavin took two steps forward. His right hand rose and touched a lock of hair resting on the right side of her forehead.
The tears ran unchecked over his face, and his voice was a grief-stricken whisper.
‘Oh, Helen, what the hell did you do?’
EIGHTEEN
Symes watched as the bitch entered the hospital walking ahead of her colleague and her girlfriend. The Fiat Panda he’d taken from the old lady’s drive wasn’t exactly a status symbol, but it was the kind of car that got ignored and that suited him fine. He’d been enjoying following her from place to place, knowing he wasn’t far away. He knew better than to get too close, but there was a pleasure building within him at the fact that she had no idea he was there.
The heady mix of anger and excitement surged through him, and he could feel the rage growing at her blasé attitude to his escape. A woman and a few cameras? Was that how seriously she took the threat of his freedom? Part of the fun was in making her suffer as much as possible before the final act.
He’d only felt rage like this once before.
Symes had always felt that he wouldn’t be allowed to grow old in the army, though his intention after he signed up was to stay put for as long as he could. It was the first place he’d ever felt he belonged. His tours of Afghanistan had been the best years of his life. He’d left all the hearts and minds bollocks to the pansies and the cowards. If they wanted to go into villages and try to win over the locals, fine. He was first in line to go in and shoot the place up when a strategically placed IED exploded in their faces. You didn’t win wars with flowers and chocolates.
He’d seen many sights that would have been enough to keep him in counselling with PTSD for a few lifetimes, but counselling was for lightweights as well. He’d always marvelled at the psychological frailty of some of his comrades. What the hell had they expected to see when they’d signed up? Had they imagined a life of building bridges and training exercises? Had they thought Afghanistan was a tourist destination getting a bad rap in the press? No, it was a war zone, had been for decades. There was noise, blood, limbs, explosions, mistrust and death. Lots of death. And he hadn’t minded it one little bit.
Army life had suited him. He knew when to get up, eat, exercise, train, go to bed. He hadn’t minded the authority as long as he got told when to fight. He had relinquished his own autonomy in exchange for being able to inflict violence and call it a job.
But that had all been taken away from him by people who had decided he was past his sell-by date. Corporal Harris had fought to keep him, but the annual pruning across all age groups had removed him from the one place he’d ever felt he belonged.
If he hadn’t been retired from the army, he would have been by Harris’s side and would have stopped that IED that tore off three of his limbs and pretty much decapitated him. A bloody good soldier had been lost, and he hadn’t even been there.
He welcomed this feeling of injustice inside him. It ate away at his insides like neat bleach. There was only one way to exorcise it, he thought, cracking his knuckles.